OFFICER IS CHARGED IN SLAYING OF YOUTH OVER A THEFT OF $13

By TODD S. PURDUM

Published: April 26, 1986

An off-duty transit police officer shot and killed an unarmed 18-year-old in a park in upper Manhattan early yesterday during an argument over the theft of $13, the police said. The officer was charged with second-degree murder, authorities said.

The officer, Paul J. Montenero, shot the youth, Daniel Guy, after a friend of Mr. Guy took the money from a man with whom the officer had been drinking in a tavern nearby, the police said.

The police said the youth's friend, Aidan Moloney, 18, had given the money back when he was confronted by the officer and the man in the park.

Officer Montenero, 33, of Harriman, N.Y., surrendered to the New York City police yesterday afternoon and was suspended from duty without pay. He was also charged with second-degree assault, authorities said. Bar Patron Reports Theft

The police said the incident occurred shortly after midnight, while Mr. Guy, Mr. Moloney and a third youth, William Dillon, 21, were drinking beer in Isham Park, at Broadway and 213th Street, near Mr. Guy's apartment in the Inwood section.

The youths apparently ran out of beer, the police said, and Mr. Moloney left the park and entered the Donemay Pub and Cafe across the street at 5008 Broadway, where he thought he might borrow money from a friend.

But Mr. Moloney, who lives at 3820 Waldo Avenue in the Bronx, did not see anyone he knew, the police said, and as he left the tavern he took $13 that was on the bar in front of a patron, who was identified only as Paul Garcia.

Mr. Garcia told the bartender, who then told Officer Montenero, who was seated nearby, and the two men followed Mr. Moloney into the park, where they confronted the youths.

At that point, according to the police account, Mr. Moloney returned the money to Mr. Garcia, but the officer pulled out his off-duty .38-caliber revolver and struck Mr. Moloney in the mouth. The blow broke open the gun and bullets spilled from the chamber to the ground, the police said, but the officer retrieved them, and in the argument that followed fired a bullet that struck Mr. Guy in the chest.

''He's not making any statements, so we're not sure exactly how the gun fired,'' said a police spokesman, Lieut. Edwin LeSchack. Officer Montenero fled and Mr. Guy was pronounced dead at the scene.

''He was a good kid, a very good kid,'' said Mr. Guy's uncle, George Spiliotis, as he stood outside the family's apartment building at 50 Park Terrace East, about two blocks from the scene of the shooting.

''There was no meanness, no maliciousness in him,'' Mr. Spiliotis said of his nephew, who graduated from Cardinal Hayes High School in the Bronx last year and was working as a plumber's apprentice. ''He stood up for one of his friends and got killed. It's the kind of thing he would do.''

Officer Montenero, who is unmarried, has received four ''derelictions'' for improper conduct since joining the force in 1982, according to a spokesman for the transit police, William Murphy.